Crazy Talk
by MissMune
Summary: AU. Dib had never believed in any of that nonsense his dad spewed out about the paranormal. Still, there was something weird about that ZIM kid.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: So, the story behind this is that I love AU stuff, I really do, and I often get random "what if" thoughts in my head that won't leave me alone. This results in my writing stuff, it does.

So, this is about...my third or forth fanfiction I've wrote, and, well, I've never finished any, to be honest. But this one had promise! I feeeel it! I'll finish this one, though, since I have my beta reader to constantly poke me.

So, I present to you Chapter One of Crazy Talk.

Oh, and also, I do not own ZIM.

---

Light refracted off the tinted windows of the scientist's room. The light seemed to mingle on the window, before flowing towards the center of the small, almost completely white room. Suddenly, a small, oval shaped device let out a loud sharp ringing, which sent what appeared to be a bundle of sheets flying upward. The bundle growled, and hit a button on the top of the object. It immediately silenced its ringing, and the bundle slowly sat up, and proceeded to pull the sheets off of its exceptionally large head. Underneath the sheets, there was a boy.

The boy looked rather tired, and frustrated, no doubt from having his sleep interrupted. He had large amber colored eyes, which were currently squinted. His hair, though obviously slept on all night, still maintained an odd scythe shape. He stumbled awkwardly out of bed, vaguely searching the nightstand for his glasses. Placing them on, he looked out of his window, which was nearly clear from the inside.

"Mmm, gotta set a delay in the mechanism," he mumbled, lifting up his glasses and rubbing his eyes before letting them fall on the bridge of his nose once more. He sighed, looking about his room, which was quite a mess. There were beakers scattered randomly about, and some odd substances coated his walls. There were one or two Bunsen burners, which had been put away quickly, though some effort had obviously been taken to assure it wasn't a fire hazard. Elsewhere in the room there were piles of various wires, haphazardly piled upon one another.

"Computer," the boy said, hoarsely, as though he didn't use his voice that often, "Run cleaning program 575." There was no response from his computer besides the opening of several compartments in his ceiling. Robotic arms descended from what appeared to be a small space, and began cleaning up the mess.

Nodding curtly, approving of the computer's action, the boy walked over to a large silver and white panel covering the middle of his lower wall. A keypad beeped angrily at the boy when he approached. He stared at it blankly, before remembering he had installed one for his closet. He didn't really _need_ one, but he just really enjoyed installing things.

Quickly he punched in the code, and the silver and white panel slide over to the white, revealing a large closet, completely filled with white lab coats. He grabbed one at random, and quickly changed, throwing his pajamas (which had light bulbs on them) in a white bin near his bedroom door. Hoping he hadn't left any important research out, he turned the knob, and walked out into the hallway.

The hallway (and, indeed, the rest of the house) was drastically different from the boy's room. In every nook and cranny there were pictures of so called paranormal "evidence." Pictures and posters lined the hallway, the living room, the kitchen, and even the bathroom. The only other place that was devoid of these annoying things, besides his bedroom, was his sister's.

The boy sneered at the largest poster, one that had an alien saucer and under it, the word "Believe." Yeah, _he'd_ believe – he'd believe his dad was insane. Honestly there had to be something wrong with the man; all he ever talked about was ghosts or aliens or seeing Bigfoot in their garage. "He was using the BELT sander!" he had said. Yeah right, Dad.

"Investigation" equipment lay all over the stairs, and on the ground floor. The boy had to walk carefully to avoid destroying any of it. Even if he didn't like what his dad did, he wasn't about to destroy any of his equipment; it would crush him. Jumping over a pair of handcuffs, he finally landed right outside the living room. He could see his father sleeping on the couch. There had been a _Mysterious Mysteries_ marathon last night, and he was sure his father had watched every single episode, probably even going to far as to take notes.

…Crazy…

Shaking his head, he walked through the living room to the kitchen. His sister was already there, eating cereal. He narrowed his eyes at the girl. "Gaz," he said, "Was that the last of the cereal?"

"Dib, you don't own _all_ the cereal, you know," Gaz spat back, through a mouthful of cereal. The boy, Dib, sighed.

"But Gaz, I'm the one who _buys_ the cereal with _my_ money," Dib said, rather upset that he wouldn't be eating cereal this morning. His sister said nothing, but, instead looked down into her bowl, seemingly ashamed of her misdeed. Dib couldn't be sure if she was, though. He wasn't sure if she just pretending to be sorry, so he wouldn't stop buying stuff for her. After all, he was the only one that did.

Dib sulked towards the black cabinet with the large picture of the Loch Ness monster on it. After rolling his eyes at the creature, he opened the cupboard and took out a box of pop tarts, also purchased with his own money. He didn't even bother to put them into the toaster, and instead sat down next to his sister, eating the pop tarts raw.

Suddenly, there came a beeping from Dib's wrist watch. Exasperated, he pressed the button, revealing a panicked looking man in a lab coat. "What is it _this_ time, Simmons?" he said, raising his eyebrows.

"Sir!" Simmons exclaimed much to Dib's dismay; he hated being called "sir." "Sir!" he repeated, "The pink elephant experiment has gone HORRIBLY wrong!"

"Did you forget to infuse the negative ions into the nuclear component?" Dib asked dully.

"Uh, actually…yeah…" the man said this a little embarrassed. "But it would be greatly appreciated, sir, if you could come in to look at it!"

"Simmons," said Dib, throwing away the rest of his pop tart, "I have to go to skool." The call was immediately cut, and Dib walked back into the living room, grabbing his backpack and muttering a quick "good bye" to his still sleeping father before leaving the house.

Gaz quickly followed him, looking a bit abashed that he had left her, but saying nothing. Dib didn't even really notice his sister, he was busy thinking about skool. It was the one time of day that he actually got to focus on his experiments with no one bothering him, as the skool kids left him alone. They _always_ left him alone ever since he had accidentally set that girl's hair on fire. Ah well, it suited him just fine.

The siblings walked to skool in silence, and departed from each other in equal silence, each going to their lockers, getting their stuff, and going to their classes in silence. Silence was a large part of being in their family.

Dib sat quietly in his seat, tinkering with some sort of new invention he had just come up with. He was sure it would make quite a large sum of money; they needed it. Dib was the bacon bringer. _He_ made all the money and_ he_ bought all the necessities. His dad, the "paranormal investigator" didn't make enough money to support a family and buy all of his ridiculous paranormal propaganda at the same time. It didn't matter, though. Dib was more than happy to allow his father to use his own money to buy all of that junk, as since Dib certainly wasn't about to indulge in his father's silly beliefs.

"Class," the voice of Ms. Bitters rang out across the classroom, making everyone in class pay attention, except for Dib. What ever she had to say he either already knew, or wasn't worth his time. "I would like to introduce the newest, hopeless appendage to the student body. His name is…ZIM."

Dib quirked an eyebrow at the name, it was certainly strange. ZIM? He had never heard of such a name.

"ZIM, if you have something to say, say it now, because after this moment, I don't wanna hear another sound from you!" Bitters shrieked at the boy, causing him to remain silent for a moment. Dib didn't know how horrified this "ZIM" was of Bitters, since he still had not looked up from his work, but, he surprisingly recovered much more quickly than the other new students.

"Hello, friends," ZIM began, casually, which surprised Dib. No new student started that casually, well, usually at least. Most of them only could say "Uh, hi!" before running off to their seats. "I am a perfectly normal human worm baby." Now that, _that_ made Dib raise his head to look at this new student. The first thing he noticed about him was that, well, he was _green_.

"You have nothing, absolutely nothing to fear from me. Just pay no attention to me and we'll get along just fine," ZIM finished, and walked over to his desk with his hands outstretched.

_That kid's green_, Dib thought staring at ZIM, _That kid's GREEN!__And…_ he continued, studying him more carefully, _He has no ears! Or nose!_ His heart skipped a beat. That wasn't normal. That wasn't normal at all.

"**YOU**!" the green boy suddenly burst out, pointing to Dib, "You _filthy_-**dirt**-_BABY_! Why do you stare at **ZIIIM**?"

Dib blinked, he _had_ been staring, hadn't he? "Uh, well," he said awkwardly, "It's just that, well, I don't mean to be rude or anything, but, you're green."

ZIM narrowed his eyes at the boy, "It's a skin condition, **FOOL BOY**!" he said.

"Oh," Dib responded, "That makes sense…Is that why you don't have ears? Or a nose?"

"Hah!" ZIM said, "Stinky earth _stink_! You have no mouth!" He pointed at Dib, smirking, as though this was a contest, whose goal was to point out all of the body parts missing from an individual.

"Whu?" Dib said, feeling his mouth. He paused. _Oh, he must mean my lab coat_, he thought, realizing the cuff of his coat covered his mouth. "No, ZIM, it's just my coat covers my mouth. I _have_ a mouth."

The green boy gave Dib the evil eye, "YOU'RE LYING!" he shouted.

"What?!" said Dib, shocked. How could this boy say he was lying? He didn't even know anything about him!

"Say…" Zita whispered to The Letter M, "Isn't that new kid a little _weird_?"

"Hey…yeah, he _is_," said The Letter M.

ZIM, overhearing this, abruptly shouted out, "NONSENSE! _NONSENSE_! I AM NORMAL!"

What was _wrong_ with that kid? Dib wondered, observing ZIM's outburst. Maybe he has mania or something…

Before anyone had time to comment on ZIM's strange behavior, the bell rang, and Ms. Bitters hissed, "GO HOME NOW!" Stopping her previous lecture about "doom" that no one was listening to in the first place.

Outside, Gaz had been waiting for Dib. She was playing her Gameslave, and seemed extremely uninterested in everything else. Yet, somehow, she noticed when Dib walked past her and followed him.

Dib, on the other hand, had _not_ noticed Gaz. He was too busy thinking about the strange new kid, ZIM. He sure was strange. In fact, he was _beyond_ strange, he was downright abnormal. There _had_ to be something other than a skin condition wrong with that kid. There just _had _to be.

_Maybe Dad's right? Maybe he's an alien?_ A voice scoffed in Dib's head. _Yeah, right, and maybe dad's right about fairies, and merpeople and vampires? _Dib chuckled outwardly, causing Gaz to look at him angrily, "No, that's crazy talk," he muttered to himself.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Ok, so, this chapter hasn't been beta-read, since my beta reader hasn't been on for a while. So, I apologize for that.

Also, thanks to everyone who reviewed chapter one! It's really appreciated!

And, I'm going to explain this right now, so people won't get confused (hopefully). In this fanfiction, Professor Membrane's name is Ivan Loch. Why is his name Ivan Loch? Well, I came up with the "Loch" part first, since "Membrane" was a stage name in the first place. I figured that he probably wouldn't want such a name in this world, since he's into paranormal science, not "real" science. So, his last name is "Loch" because ol' Ivan has a particular fixation with Nessie (which you won't see much of) and decided to use that as his stage name. As for "Ivan" I just kind of used that because I got reminded of "Ivan Lachrymose, Lake Explorer" when I named him.

So, that's about it! Enjoy Chapter Two of Crazy Talk!

And, yeah, I dun own ZIM.

---

The days following ZIM's arrival were, quite possibly, the strangest Dib had ever experienced. After the first day, Dib thought there was something extremely weird about ZIM, but, after spending a week in the same classroom as the green boy, he _knew_. He _knew_ that there was something incredibly wrong with that kid. There had been..._incidents_.

For example, on the second day after ZIM had joined the confines of his wretched skool, he had noticed that he was asking some very strange questions to Ms. Bitters like "How prepared would earth be for a full scale alien invasion?" or "What's particularly toxic to you filthy worm babies?" Certainly that alone would be enough to prove that ZIM was certifiably freakish, but there was more.

Shortly before the anniversary of his first week at school (which ZIM made sure to remind everyone in the class of) something happened that Dib just couldn't explain. It had been a usual skool day, or as usual as they got since ZIM had entered the class. On this particular day, Dib had paid no attention to ZIM at all, he had finally figured that the kid must simply have mania – it fit well enough. As such, Dib had begun working on a new experimental device, designed to construct medical nanobots that would make delicate procedures far simpler. He had been relieved to get back to work, but it suddenly interrupted when a bright flash of light that nearly blinded Dib and caused him to fall out of his desk.

Whatever the flash had been, it nearly ruined his invention. Dib angrily climbed back onto his desk looking around for the culprit. And there was ZIM, whistling innocently on the other side of the room, twiddling his thumbs and occasionally looking around the room suspiciously. Dib glared at ZIM. What had that kid done _now_? He was just about to shout over to the stupid green kid that he had almost _ruined_ his nanobots, but shut his mouth when he caught sight of the kid next to him; he looked like a drooling _moron._ Now, normally the kid wasn't that bright in the first place but this was different – he actually looked like he was lacking a brain.

Dib looked back over to ZIM, and could only gape at him. ZIM responded with a sly look, which made Dib cringe. What was worse, however, was that _nobody_ else seemed to have noticed. _No one_. Maybe ZIM was smarter than he gave him credit for…

Dib decided at _that_ moment, that he would stay as far away from ZIM as possible.

A few days after what Dib had taken to calling the "incident," Ms. Bitters suddenly announced that parent teacher night was that night. Dib had been busy packing up, as the bell had just rung, but paused when he heard his horrific teacher's words. That was bad. That was _very_ bad.

Dib _hated_ parent teacher night. His father always ended up embarrassing him in some way. He remembered just last year he had went on about how he could have _sworn_ he saw "the devil's" footprints outside of their house last winter. A few years prior to that he had given a giant lecture about ghosts, and how this very skool was rumored to be haunted. He hadn't convinced anyone, but he _did_ succeed in embarrassing Dib beyond belief. The kids at skool hadn't let that go for months following. They had taken to jumping out from behind things, yelling "BOO!" as he passed.

And this year humiliation would probably have something to do with ZIM. ZIM would either be a goblin or a monster or…an alien. Yes, his father would probably brand the green boy as an "alien" and traumatize the kid.

"I never agreed to attend this 'parent TEACHER night'!" ZIM yelled at the teacher.

_Or, maybe not…_ Dib thought.

"Yes, you did," Ms. Bitters replied, not phased at all by ZIM.

"NO! YOU LIE! YOU LIIIIIE!!!" ZIM shrieked, making movements as thought to scratch Ms. Bitters's eyes out.

_Okay, _Dib continued his train of thought, _definitely not. _

"Heh," Ms. Bitters scoffed, swooping over to her desk and swiftly putting it into her computer. With one click of her mouse the blackboard parted to show a giant television screen.

"Wow, I never knew she had that," Dib whispered. He had stopped packing completely at this point, merely watching the scene between the two, um, people? Dib didn't know _what_ ZIM was, and he had always thought Ms. Bitters was some sort of inter-dimensional demon or something.

The screen showed ZIM, balancing a pencil on his lip. "ZIM, are you going to bring your parents to parent teacher night?" Ms. Bitters could be heard saying off screen.

ZIM removed the pencil and said, quickly, "Yeah, sure, whatever," only to resume his previous activity.

The blackboard closed far faster than Dib would have thought possible, leaving ZIM in a state of shock. "Why would you tape that?" he asked quietly, realizing that there was a security camera in the corner of the room.

_Why _would_ she tape that? _

Shoving one last book into his backpack, he walked towards the door, and, thus, towards ZIM, who was fuming. Dib tried to cut past the earless kid without ZIM noticing him, and was relieved when he had managed to get out of the classroom without ZIM saying anything to him.

This relief was short lived, however, as ZIM soon burst out of the classroom, looking furious. "That **_horrible!_**" He mumbled, walking next to Dib, who increased his speed. ZIM kept pace, however. "To _ME_, **ZIM!" **he continued, confusing Dib.

"With her _chalkboard,_" ZIM growled, gnashing his teeth. "I'm Ms. Bitters," he mocked, putting two fingers on his head to imitate Ms. Bitters. "Doomy, DOOMY, _DOOM."_

"ZIM," Dib interjected, baffled completely by ZIM's miserable attempt at venting, "_What_ are you _talking_ about?!"

ZIM looked at Dib as though he were noticing him for the first time, which may well have been true. "Human **_meat_** puppet! Why do you yawp at _ZIIIM_?"

"_YOU _were talking to _me_, ZIM!" Dib said, angrily.

"You speak **_craziness_**, big headed boy!" ZIM defended, pointing at him suddenly.

Dib stopped in his tracks, "'Big headed boy?'" he repeated. No one had ever told him his head was big before! "My head's not big!" cried Dib, glaring daggers at ZIM.

ZIM only responded with a yawn as he walked away, leaving Dib tight fisted and abashed.

Dib and Gaz had walked home in silence after the former had finally gotten it together enough to move from the spot where he had firmly planted himself. _Big head? **He** didn't have a big head! The very idea! _

"It's parent teacher night," Gaz said, without emotion.

"I know!" Dib snarled at his sister, before correcting himself with a softer toned, "I mean, I know." His sister looked up from her game, glaring at him for snarling at her, but saying nothing, not even her usual growls were audible.

"He's probably going to be worse this year," Dib mumbled as they approached their house. He could see his father's long black car parked in the garage. At least he was home.

Almost reluctantly, the siblings turned the knob of their front door. They were instantly greeted by their father, who was looking absolutely giddy. "Hello, son," he said to Dib, "And daughter!" he continued, noticing Gaz. "How was your day at skool?!"

"It was ok, dad," Dib muttered.

"Wonderful! Speaking of your skool, I was doing some research on those robotic squirrels that sometimes show up in the court yard, and I've found -"

"Yeah, that's great, dad," interrupted Dib. "Listen, dad, its parent teacher night and -"

His father chuckled, "Of course it is, son! Of course it is!"

"Uh, yeah; it's at seven," Dib continued.

"Right, son! I must go PREPARE!" his father said, running off up stairs, black trench coat fluttering behind him.

_This was going to be a long night… _Dib thought, skulking off to his own room.

The few hours of dignity left before parent teacher night passed far too quickly, and soon it was 6:30. Dib had prepared as best as he could for the upcoming degradation, and was actually surprised to find that Gaz seemed ready as well. Or at least she appeared to be when their father reentered the living room, not looking any different than he had but a few hours ago. Dib had a feeling that his "preparing" had been nothing more than researching more of his paranormal nonsense that he would spew out at anyone who would listen.

"Ready, kids?" He said, smiling at them. Dib nodded in reply, while Gaz growled angrily at her father. He didn't seem to notice the lackluster response from his children, and walked out towards the garage as though this was the greatest moment of his life. The siblings followed despondently afterward.

The short car ride from their house to the skool seemed to take an eternity. The only sound was the constant yapping of the so called "paranormal investigator." The subject tonight was the "tree conspiracy" as he called it. Supposedly the government was making sure that anytime a tree fell it would land on a car. Dib didn't quite understand why the government would do this, and, when he asked his father just shook his head and tsked at him.

It was sweet release to be freed from the car as they pulled up to the skool. "We'll continue this discussion later," said Dib's father.

"Mmm-hmm," Dib said slightly irritated and practically running towards the skool's entrance. He saw that Gaz was doing the same, only the look on her face was less of mild aggravation than full out hatred.

Their father entered a bit after them, he was apparently grabbing something from the glove compartment before exiting his car. Dib groaned when he saw what he had brought – pictures of flying saucers.

"Come on, son!" he said, passing Dib. "Say, where's your sister?"

"Probably ran off…" Dib grumbled. "Ah, anyway, dad, I'm going to go," he paused, "Get some punch! Uh, yeah, I'm going to go do that!"

"Have fun, son!"

Dib sighed; glad to be away from his father. "Hey, Dib!" a friendly voice called from behind. It was Mr. Elliot.

"Oh, hi, Mr. Elliot," Dib said.

"Say, where's your family?" he asked.

"Gaz is over there," Dib said, pointing towards a dark corner, where his sister could be seen basking in the florescent light of her gameslave, "And dad's -"

"Oh! I see him! Let's go say hi!" the good-natured teacher said, leading the unenthusiastic Dib back to his father.

"Hello, Ivan!" Mr. Elliot said.

"Hi, dad," Dib said, looking anywhere but at his father.

"Hello, Mr. Elliot!" Ivan said enthusiastically, turning away from Mr. Elliot to Dib, "I thought you were getting PUNCH, son!"

"I, um, was," said Dib, looking at the ground, embarrassedly.

"So, how's Dib doing in school?"

"Well, actually, Mr. Loch," Mr. Elliot said, looking over to Gaz's corner, "I'm _Gaz's_ teacher."

"Ah, of course! So how's the girl doing?"

Dib looked up to the two adults; both of them had forgotten he was here. They wouldn't miss him if he just kind of…_left._ He really _did_ want punch, anyway. And, this time, Dib actually succeeded in getting to the table, and getting a cup before he was interrupted.

ZIM had just entered the cafeteria with his "parents." Dib could just barely hear him tell Ms. Bitters "These are my parents; I love them with all my heart." He could plainly see the two figures jerk and twitch and give off electrical sparks, though.

"I must have punch, now!" the green kid cried as he rushed off towards where Dib was currently standing.

Dib stared at ZIM as he got himself some punch, "Those are _not_ your parents, ZIM," he said, dully.

ZIM scowled at Dib. "Foolish **_STINK_** child! Of COURSE they are my parents! Do you not _see_ the resemblance?"

"Um, no?" Dib said, "And, anyway, those are _obviously _robots. Poorly _constructed_ robots."

"Stupid hu-_MAN_!" ZIM snapped, "You DARE question the **_amazing_ **construction skills of ZIM?" He paused, looking around warily, "Uh, I mean; your meat brains are obviously mistaken, earth pig."

Dib opened his mouth to respond to the incredibly idiotic thing ZIM had just said, but was stopped by a sudden calling from behind him, "SON! Get away from that _alien_!"

"Dad," Dib said, through gritted teeth, "He's _not_ an alien. He's just really weird and stupid."

"He has no _ears_, son!" Mr. Loch said, poking ZIM, causing him to hiss angrily, revealing his worm-like tongue. "And look at his tongue! That is not a human tongue!"

"Look, dad!" Dib yelled, "You've gotta stop -"

There suddenly came a terrified screaming from the back of the cafeteria. "OW, OW, OW! MY HEAD!"

It took a moment before Dib realized that this screaming was caused by a woman who was being poked repeatedly by ZIM's "mother." ZIM looked shocked, and only stared at the scene for a moment, before realizing that he should stop his raging technology.

"MOM!" ZIM said, running up to his robot mother, "I think we should go now!"

His mother turned around, looking rather intimidating, "Don't tell me what to do, young man! Go to your room!" Suddenly, his mother grabbed him and threw him in the punch bowl.

"Yeah, you _really_, need to program them better, ZIM," Dib said, looking over at ZIM's robodad, who began to twitch violently just before his arm rocketed off, landing right next to Mr. Elliot, who screamed.

"Nothing to worry about!" ZIM said, frantically jumping out of the punch bowl, "My dad lost his arm in the, uh, the war!"

"'The war?'" Dib scoffed quietly.

"Oh, come _on_, people!" Ivan Loch suddenly burst out, "That's _not_ normal human behavior! That kid's an alien!"

ZIM laughed nervously, "Ah, nonsense! My parents are _perfectly_ normal!"

"Quit poking my mom's head!" the boy of the woman suffering pokey trauma cried.

"HAH! That's not normal behavior, green thing!" Mr. Loch accused, pointing at him, "How is it not obvious that he's an alien?"

"Hey! Can't you see we don't want to hear your ridiculous tales tonight, Ivan?!" a burly man cried. "Can't you do something useful? Like helping that poor woman over there?"

"I _am_ doing something useful, Mugsy! I'm trying to get that alien on a dissection table!" Ivan retorted.

Dib rubbed his face in frustration, "ZIM!" he whispered to the panicking green boy, "Why don't you just disable their independent thought units?" he asked, or, rather, suggested. True, he wasn't particularly fond of ZIM, but he would rather help him then stand here and listen to his father fight about _aliens_ with the other parents.

"Eh?" ZIM said, "Eh, I mean, of _course_. I was just about to do that. You thought of _nothing_ pathetic monkey-thing!"

"Right…" Dib said, as ZIM suddenly pulled out a strange mechanical device the likes of which Dib had never seen. He fiddled with some of the buttons, almost at random. It seemed to work, however, as both the robomom and dad stopped what they were doing.

"Uh, right, so, let's go home. LET'S GO HOME **_NOW_**," ZIM burst out, balling up his fingers into a fist. The parents obeyed, and ZIM looked triumphant. The trio walked out of the cafeteria without another word.

Meanwhile, Mr. Loch continued to fight with the crowd about aliens. "Look, I'll _show_ you!" he said, moving towards where ZIM had been not a moment before.

"Uh, I mean," he said, nervously. Looking down at Dib, he whispered, "Where did the green kid go, son?"

"Oh, he went home dad. I don't think he was feeling well," Dib shrugged. Loch looked nervous.

"Well, I guess that's that, then!" he said, quickly. "It's time to go home! Go get your sister, son."

Dib didn't end up needing to, however, as Gaz showed up not a moment after he had said they were going home. She was looking extremely surly, and Dib couldn't blame her.

"Say, son, what was that child's name?" his father asked, as they left the skool and into the fresh air.

Dib paused, and visualized his father outside of his classroom everyday, taking notes on ZIM. He thought about his father stalking ZIM, and breaking into his house trying to prove he was an alien. He thought about the restraining orders and prison time that would surely result.

As casually as possible, he said, "You know, dad, I don't remember."


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: This is probably my favorite premise for a chapter, and I like the way it turned out. It didn't turn out _exactly_ how I wanted it, but I still like it anyway.

So, this chapter was beta-read (yeah) and has been taking forever to upload since my internet keeps exploding into a fiery ball. It's really terrible.

However, I have to say I had fun with this one, especially the part with the sun. That was based on a conversation I had with a kid when I was little. I really wanted to smack that kid for thinking the sun was a planet…

Anyway! Enjoy Chp 3 of Crazy Talk!

ZIM is owned by not me.

---

Dib was granted very little sleep the night following parent teacher night. He had been kept alert by thoughts of what new taunts the kids in his class would come up with _this_ year. True, they were _always_ terribly juvenile and just plain _bad _but Dib still despised hearing them year after year.

That was only part of the reason for his sleeplessness that night, though. After Dib had exhausted the horrible thoughts of the skool kid's eventual mockings, his thoughts turned to ZIM and his "parents."

_Why in the world does ZIM have _robot_ parents? What happened to his real parents? Did they die? _Dib thought, staring blankly at the white ceiling,_ Yeah, they must have died. _He rolled over onto his side, trying to get comfortable, _And he must have made those robots so people wouldn't put him in an orphanage or…something…_

Dib twisted so that he could see out of his window, causing the covers to wrap around him uncomfortably. He could see the darkness of night lifting, fading into the pale light of dawn. _If that's true, though,_ he thought, untangling himself from the sheets and turning off his alarm prematurely, _Then why don't I feel bad for him?_

Dib had taken his time getting ready this morning. He was awake even earlier than usual, and was feeling particularly sluggish from lack of sleep. The sleep deprived boy slumped down the stairs, nearly tripping over almost every step as he descended.

Thankfully, Dib had managed to make it to the kitchen without getting himself killed. He yawned and stretched, taking off his glasses to rub his eyes; his vision was blurry from fatigue, and it took him a moment to realize that he wasn't alone – that Gaz was up. She, too, looked tired, but not nearly as tired as Dib felt.

It seemed that Gaz hadn't noticed Dib either; she continued to chew on her pop tart quietly. The rest of the cereal Dib had bought a few days ago was left on the counter. There was just enough for one more bowl. Dib quirked and eyebrow at his sister. Had she? ...No, she must have just wanted a pop tart that morning.

Cautiously, he approached the cereal. No response from Gaz. Realizing his sister wasn't about to attack him (not that she ever had, he had just always been a bit wary around her) he grabbed the cereal and rushed over to the cupboard that contained the bowls. Happily, he seized a bowl, got some milk, and a spoon, and sat down on the other side of the table.

"Good morning, Gaz!" Dib said brightly to his sister, who replied with a grunt and a spray of pop tart bits.

Dib sighed. His sister sure had a way with ruining the mood. _Still_, he thought, chomping on his cereal, _this was good cereal._

Unfortunately for Dib, his good mood was immediately ruined once he stepped into Ms. Bitters's classroom. "Hey, DIIIB!" a kid called from the back of the classroom. "Lookit meee!" he said, standing up on top his desk and holding two fingers over his head, "I'm an **ALIEN**!"

Seeing this, the rest of the class joined in, as Dib walked angrily over to his desk. "ALIEN, ALIEN!" they all cried in unison, making strange faces and wiggling their fingers.

After they had had their fun, and the laughter had died down, the same kid that had started it said, "Man, Dib. Your dad is _stupid_."

"My dad is _not _stupid!" Dib yelled, "He just believes in something _you_ don't!"

Silence swept over the classroom, as the children stopped to stare at Dib. It was obvious they had nothing to say until someone shouted out "He's crazy!" Then the usual grating laughter of the children descended upon Dib, who turned away from them.

_Maybe he is crazy_, Dib thought, blankly staring at the chalkboard, _Maybe **I'm**__crazy for defending him_.

Sadly, he put his head on his hand and leaned upon it. He didn't even feel like finishing the nanobot experiment he had been working on at the moment. Instead he just sat, waiting for Ms. Bitters to begin her daily speech about doom or some such nonsense.

To make matters worse, ZIM entered the classroom at that moment, looking oddly victorious, no doubt because of last night. Dib didn't understand why he was so happy about it, it's not like anything had changed.

"Heee-eeey!" Zita said, looking over to Dib, "It's the 'alien'".

Dib gritted his teeth in frustration. _Why_ did they say this to him! He wasn't his dad! _He_ didn't believe in aliens.

Though, surprisingly, ZIM's eyes widened as he glared at the girl, "_NONSENSE_! I am not a member of a _clearly_ **superior** alien race. I am just your average pig monkey… thing."

"That doesn't even make _sense_, ZIM," Dib said, slightly muffled since his cheek was still propped up against his hand.

ZIM looked like he was about to say something to Dib, or rather, _shout_ something at him (Dib had realized that ZIM rarely ever spoke at a level that didn't make your ears bleed) when Ms. Bitters finally entered the classroom.

"Children," she said to the classroom, and all the murmuring died down, "Let me just say that it was _horrible_ to meet all of your worthless parents last night, and that I'm sure that all of you will end up just as destitute as them."

"Now," Ms. Bitters continued, slithering over to the chalkboard, and writing "planets" on it, which was considerably less morbid than what she usually wrote. "Which one of you _children_ can tell me what planets compose our _hideous _solar system."

Immediately Dib raised his hand. "Yes, Dib?" Bitters hissed.

"Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto," he said quickly and without problem.

"No, stupid!" Brian called out, "You forgot the sun!"

"The sun's not a planet," Dib said dully.

"Yes it is!" Brian cried back.

"_No_, it's not; it's a star," Dib said, glaring at the boy.

"Nuh-uh."

"_Yes_."

"Silence!" Ms. Bitters barked, "That's_ correct_, Dib."

Dib gave Brian a coy look, who countered by sticking out his tongue.

The rest of the first part of the day passed relatively calmly, the only real annoyance was all the jokes about "Uranus." Even so, Dib was relieved to leave the classroom when the lunch bell rang. He had brought a lunch that day; he didn't really feel like eating what the cafeteria served.

Dib had walked quickly to the cafeteria, and sat down next to his sister without a word. He wondered how she always seemed to get there before him. His thoughts, however, were interrupted when Dib caught sight of ZIM spasming on one of the lunch tables.

Looking curiously at ZIM, Dib began to eat the sandwich he had packed.

"That new kid's a freak. I think his name is Zip or something," Dib heard Jessica say. "He's been here long enough to at least make some loser friends, like that nerdy kid Dib."

_Nerdy?_ Dib thought, _**I'm **not nerdy!_

"Or those rejects in the corner."

_Well at least she didn't group me in with the rejects…_

"But look at him! All by himself. I mean, what kind of kid doesn't have any friends? It's so inhuman!" Jessica concluded.

Dib sighed, and looked back to his food. Not having friends wasn't _that_ weird, and it _certainly_ wasn't inhuman. _Though_, he supposed, _I guess it's not exactly normal, either._

Lost in his thoughts, Dib had not noticed ZIM's approach, and Dib was a little startled when he suddenly spoke.

"I'm looking for a _friend_," he said, "Would you be my _friend_?"

Dib was genuinely shocked, not only was ZIM _not_ shouting, but he almost seemed _polite_ about it. He felt a little bad for the green kid. "Uh, look, ZIM. I really don't have _time_ for friends. I mean I'm always so -"

"**Excellent**!" ZIM said grabbing Dib by his oversized collar and pulling him over to Jessica's table.

"I'd like you all to meet, uh," ZIM said, pausing, "Uh, _Dib_. He's my _best friend_."

Dib looked up at ZIM, shocked, "Wait? But ZIM I never agreed -"

"Not yours, _MINE_," the green boy continued, as though Dib hadn't said anything at all.

"Get lost you losers," Jessica said.

"Very well," said ZIM, "I am going to get _lost_, but notice I am getting _lost_ with my _best friend_." ZIM then turned on his heel, and walked away, dragging Dib along with him.

"Stop _dragging_ me, ZIM!" Dib said, pulling away from ZIM's grasp and standing up.

"Eh?" ZIM said, looking back at Dib as though he couldn't understand why anyone wouldn't want the privilege of being dragged around by him.

Dib sighed, and held the bridge of his nose in frustration, "Look, ZIM, I understand that you probably want a friend, but I don't know if I'm the right person for the job. Look, you seem…um…_interesting_ and all but- "

"Shut your voice hole Dib-human," ZIM said, "We must go do _'best friend' _things."

"Like _what?_" Dib asked, clearly irritated.

What followed that simple question was one of the worst experiences of Dib's life. First, it was tetherball. ZIM had insisted that Dib be used as a bat or something. Dib had refused outright, but that didn't stop ZIM from using him as one, anyway. Then, _then_ ZIM wanted to do some sort of horrible victory dance and pulled Dib along with him. All the kids stared.

After that, in art class, ZIM had created a poorly drawn picture of ZIM and Dib with the words "Best friends" under it, and showed it to the rest of the class. Dib hadn't drawn anything of the sort, however. He had instead drawn up some schematics for a new project he was planning to work on. ZIM looked irritated with him.

_Finally_ (and this was perhaps worst of all), ZIM had Dib walk down the hallway with him, pointing at the kids and giving them thumbs up. It was humiliating, and Dib was beside himself with anger. He was so livid that when ZIM accidentally bumped into him, he pushed him over.

It seemed like an eternity before school finally ended, and Dib finally was free of ZIM. Well, not really. ZIM had decided to follow him, yelling at the entire school that he and Dib were going to _his_ house to do '**_best friend stuff._**' The kids had just responded with laughter.

"ZIM," Dib said, with cold fury, "I am _not_ going to your house."

"You speak like a _space clown_, Dib **beast**," ZIM said, glaring at Dib, "Of _course_ you are. I have not yet proven my _incredible _knack for companionship."

"So, you're saying if you prove your 'knack for companionship' then you'll leave me alone?" Dib asked, adding, "Forever?"

"Sure, why not?" ZIM said, shrugging.

"_Fine_, then," Dib said.

Neither ZIM nor Dib spoke as they walked from the school to ZIM's house, though, occasionally they would stop to glare at each other. Dib _really_ didn't like that kid.

As the two approached ZIM's cul-de-sac, a faint green glow could be seen. Soon, Dib saw, that it was coming from a strange green house with pink windows. "Let me guess," he said, "That's _your_ house?"

"Does it not _amaze_ you?" ZIM said haughtily.

"Oh, it's _amazing_ alright."

Dib stopped in his tracks as they got closer and closer to the house - there was a green dog…a green dog taking out the trash. "I-is that a dog?" he asked ZIM pointing to the green thing.

"Of _course_ it is a dog. All dogs on this filthy dirt ball are like that!" ZIM said, off-handedly.

"No, no they're not!" Dib said, finally reaching ZIM's house, "Dogs _aren't _green and _can't _take the trash out!"

"**Foolishness**!" ZIM said, walking past GIR. Dib followed, warily watching the dog, who smiled at him at first, before jumping on his head, squealing unnaturally.

In shock, Dib only stood there, looking ahead blankly. "Please get your dog off of my head, ZIM," he said, without tone.

"GIR!" ZIM said, opening his strange lopsided purple door.

"Welcome home, son!" the two roboparents said in unison.

The dog suddenly jumped off of Dib's head, and saluted ZIM before shrieking and running around in circles.

_Was that **really** a dog? _Dib wondered.

"Heh, look, ZIM," Dib said, backing away from ZIM and his house, "As much as I would _love _to enter your terrifying house I – I have other stuff to do like…doing stuff…uh, yeah…"

ZIM stared blankly at Dib, blinking once, very slowly, clearly not comprehending.

"Yeah, so I'm-I'm going home," Dib said, backing up even more, "Uh, bye!" Quickly Dib waved at ZIM and walked quickly away from his house.

_What country was ZIM **from**, anyway? _Dib wondered, heart beating rapidly, _Apparently some country that likes the color green_.

Once Dib thought he was far away from ZIM's conspicuous home, he slowed to a walk. _Maybe ZIM's weirder than I thought_, Dib mused, _That was **definitely**_ _not a dog. _

_Yes,_ he continued_, ZIM's weird but-but he's **not** an alien! NO, he **certainly** wasn't an alien. _

"He's just weird," Dib whispered to himself, thinking of the "I heart earth," signs that hung near his house. "Just weird…"


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: First of all, I'd like to say that I'm extremely grateful to all of you guys who review my stuff! You guys are awesome! Thanks to all of you!

Now, about this chapter – it was hard to write. Why? I do not know, but this one was the most difficult to write. Still, it turned out _ok_.

_Plus_ I know that in the show Dark Harvest and The Wettening don't happen on the same day, but I figured it'd just be more convenient this way, as this chapter doesn't revolve around either specifically.

Oh, and don't ask about the chicken/flute thing. That was just something I felt like I needed to include. It amused my beta-reader, so.

Anyway, enjoy chp 4 of Crazy Talk!

Disclaimer: Whoa, I don't own ZIM and stuff!

----

After Dib had arrived home, he had tried his best to forget about what had just occurred with ZIM. He had tried his best to rationalize, no, not _rationalize_ - make _sense_ of the situation. Nothing about it seemed to make sense. Why was ZIM's house _green? _Why was his "dog" green? Why was _he_ green?

_Ok_, Dib thought, sitting down on the couch and staring forward blankly, _Ok so **maybe** ZIM has a skin condition. **That** makes sense but – but there's no way his **dog** does! _Dib paused, scratching his chin thoughtfully, _Well, maybe, **maybe** it's not a dog! Maybe it's a…_

Dib squirmed back into the couch, _What could that thing **be?**_It was so frustrating! Angrily, he rubbed his face, trying to see all the possibilities for that weird dog of ZIM's. _Wasn't it "GIR" or something?_ he continued, _That wasn't very dog-like. In fact it kind of sounded like the name he had given to that robot he had built a few years ago…_

_Wait! That was it! That little thing was a robot! Just like ZIM's parents! _Dib concluded, getting up off of the couch and smiling brightly at nothing in particular. _It makes perfect sense! ZIM's not all **that** weird! Ok, he was **pretty** weird but… He just likes building robots! _

That was it! He had solved the puzzle!

Satisfied by his logic, Dib walked into the kitchen, feeling much better than he had but a few minutes ago.

"Hello, son!" Dib heard his father say from behind him, as he opened the fridge and took out a poop cola.

"Hey, dad," Dib said, opening the can.

"I see you came home from _skool_ a little _late_ today" he said, enthusiastically.

"Uh, yeah, I was at ZIM's," Dib said, off-handedly before mentally smacking himself. He shouldn't have said that.

"Is this a _friend_ of yours, son!?" Loch asked, "I'll have to meet him! Can't have him be one of those horrible vampire babies!"

"Uh, no, dad," Dib said quickly, "No, we just had an-um…_project_ together!"

"Good to see you're taking _initiative _with skool_¸ _son!" his father continued, giving him the thumbs up.

"Yeah, dad. It's really great," Dib said, looking at his father strangely. "Uh, say, dad?" he asked, awkwardly, "Why do you believe aliens exist?"

Loch blinked, what ever he had been expecting from his son, it hadn't been that. "Well, son," he started, thinking about how to phrase it, "How could there _not_ be aliens? Just look at how enormous the universe is!"

"But, dad, what's the likelihood that those planets would have intelligent life? Let alone ones intelligent enough to come up with long distance space travel?" Dib said, "I mean, look at _us_, even humans haven't been able to build an interstellar space vehicle!" He paused, "It's just _so_ unlikely!"

"Son, out of all the planets and galaxies in the universe, what makes you think that there _couldn't_ be some race that has developed far past us? It seems completely possible, if not _probable_ to me, son," Loch finished, waiting for Dib to respond. When none came, he shrugged and told Dib he was going to be out for the evening, to investigate some new crop circles that had popped out outside of town.

Dib stared on after his father as he exited the kitchen, "Maybe," he said, taking a sip of his cola.

---

The following day, Dib had gotten up a little bit later than usual. He had finally gotten around to adjusting the mechanism in his alarm clock to a reasonable time, and had nothing to keep him up during the wee hours of the night.

Not being tired, it was easy for Dib to get ready for school, head downstairs, and leave with Gaz. He noticed his dad still wasn't home yet. Sometimes that would happen. Sometimes his dad would be gone for days and return touting new "evidence" of Bigfoot or poltergeists or Nessie. _Especially_ Nessie. Dib wondered how often his dad had already traveled to Loch Ness. It seemed he tried to at least every few months.

Gaz didn't seem to notice their father's absence. Dib hadn't bothered to tell her that he was gone, but he knew that she knew. She _always_ noticed when their father wasn't home; she loved it. Gaz hated her father being home – in fact, she seemed to hate him all together. She would constantly growl at him, and, occasionally, Dib was sure she wanted to hit him. Dib actually remembered a time, when the two were young, when she had done just that. Her punishment had been rather severe, though ("No video games for a month!") and she had never tried it again.

Truthfully, though, Dib rarely paid any attention to his little sister, and today was no different. He had barely remembered not to leave her behind that morning, and he hadn't said a word to her the entire way to school. He was busy writing out a new experiment he was planning to do.

It was a rather simple procedure, designed to get the FDA to do something about the atrocious school food. Dib was simply going to have a look at the organs of his fellow students, to observe the effects of the school food. It certainly wasn't anything ground-breaking; Dib just wanted something edible to be provided for school lunch.

As the two approached the school, Dib realized they were running late. It would be only a moment before the bell would ring; he didn't want to be late. Quickly, he waved good-bye to Gaz, who didn't look like she was going to speed up for anything, and ran off towards his classroom.

Dib barely managed to enter the class before the bell rang. Ms. Bitters have him a cold look, and he continued over to his desk hurriedly.

---

The first part of the day dragged on horribly. Ms. Bitters wasn't talking about anything of interest, and Dib had already finished preparing for his experiment. He had nothing else to do but listen to his teacher's droning. How could the other kids listen to this all the time?

Finally, the sweet release of the morning recess came. Now would be the time to gather the information on the damage already done to the children. Well, physically, anyway. Dib would never know how bad those kids had been damaged _mentally._

Carefully, Dib got out the equipment, as he sat on a bench on the playground. He hoped none of the kids would question what he was doing, as he lifted the x-ray goggles up to his face.

"Hmm," he said, looking at a large circle of children, who were apparently playing some game with a ball, "Zootch seems to have severe liver damage." Writing that down, he switched his view to The Letter M, "Ugh, ulcers?" Again, Dib wrote that down and switched to another child. "Kidney damage," Switch, "Lack of intestinal lining," Switch, "How the heck did they get _lung_ damage?"

Dib continued like this for a while, graphing out a table of all the health problems the children seemed to have from the school food. He lifted his head up once more, checking for anyone he might have missed.

"My squeedly-spootch!" Dib heard someone said, and quickly looked over to whoever it was.

It was only ZIM. "He hasn't been here long enough to suffer any extremely abject effect of the food," Dib muttered to himself, "I suppose I can use him as a control subject."

Turning on the goggles once more, he checked for any problems with ZIM's organs. Immediately, however, Dib knew something wasn't right. "Unknown?" he repeated what the screen said.

"Th-that can't be right," Dib said, removing the goggles and looking down at them. Did they have some sort of technical problem? "They were working just fine a minute ago," he said, lifting them up and inspecting them.

The bell rang, and, reluctantly, Dib stood up and walked back into the building. "Unknown?" he repeated, staring at the goggles, "What does _that_ mean?"

----

After a full day of hearing about how it's only a matter of time before the Earth would _implode_ upon itself because of its corroding magma interior, the only distraction being the sudden case of "head pigeons" that inflicted ZIM, Dib had almost completely forgotten about his experiment, and had taken to laying his head on the desk, waiting for the day to end.

Suddenly, there was a soft dripping on the roof. Relieved to finally have something else to view, Dib looked out the window to witness rain whipping against the building's side. "Perfect," Dib mumbled quietly, "_Now_, I have to walk home in the rain."

Dib was not incorrect, either, for no sooner had he spoken those words than did the bell ring. Ms. Bitters immediately pointed to the door, and Dib was sure she had said something, but he didn't care enough to find out. He just wanted to leave, rain or no.

It _was_ raining rather hard, though, Dib observed as he followed the rest of the kids outward. The rest of them seemed to be enjoying it, but Dib just sighed at the sight of it. He was going to get wet, no matter what.

Still, he hung around at the school's entrance for a bit, waiting for the rain to stop. He noticed he wasn't the only one doing so however. ZIM also appeared to be waiting for the rain to stop. Yet unlike Dib, who was simply irritated with the rain, ZIM actually appeared a little _afraid_ of it.

"Are you ok, ZIM?" Dib asked, raising an eyebrow at the green kid.

ZIM looked at him strangely for a moment, before laughing, "Of _course_ I am fine, Dib-_beast_! There is nothing to fear from a little," he paused, looking at the rain, "A little…eh…"

"Rain?" Dib finished for him.

"Yes, yes, that _stuff_," ZIM said, pointing to the falling water vaguely.

"Uh, yeah," Dib said, walking from underneath the protective covering of the entranceway. "Well," he said, awkwardly, "Bye."

ZIM looked at Dib, then back at the other children, who were singing some strange song about rain. Apprehensively, he followed into the stream of water. Dib watched curiously.

At first, ZIM seemed fine – until he burst out into horrific screams. He began to run around, waving his arms widely in what was inevitably horrible pain. Eventually, he seemed to realize that he needed to get out of the rain, and ran under a tree, panting like mad.

Dib gaped. What was up with _that_? Was it even _possible_ for humans to be allergic to water like that? "That is _not_ normal!" he said aloud, eye twitching slightly.

Gaz walked past, holding an umbrella, "Gaz!" he cried, "D-did you see _that_?"

"See _what_, Dib?" Gaz said, turning to look at him.

"ZIM! He -" Dib said, pointing to ZIM, who gave him an angry look. "He-" Dib paused, as the rain had suddenly stopped, and light was now peaking from out of the cloud cover.

Emerging from beneath the protection of the tree, ZIM walked over to where Dib and Gaz stood. "Hoo-boy," he said, "Was _that_ refreshing. Mmm, yep, just your _average_ human shower! Yep."

"That's not how humans take showers," Dib said, quietly.

"_YOU'RE LYING_!" ZIM accused, glaring at Dib for a moment before coughing into his hand and looking the other way.

Dib blinked, and the two stood there, staring at each other blankly before Gaz piped up.

"Come _on_, Dib," she said, "I can leave with or without you," she added.

"Uh, yeah," Dib said, backing away from ZIM, "Yeah, let's go."

---

Dib entered his home flustered. He immediately blew off anything he had been planning to do and ran up the stairs to his room. It was still as white and as scientific as it had ever been. Half fulfilled experiments still lined the floor, and new gunk had appeared on the wall.

Ignoring all of this, Dib opened his lab top and quickly looked up "water allergies." He found several pages on it, and he found that water allergies were indeed possible. People would sometimes break out in a rash or hives if hit with it but no where did it say that they would experience extreme pain or…smoke. Yes, ZIM was smoking, wasn't he?

Then, his organs hadn't shown up in the x-ray goggles. Were they really just broken? Dib took them out of his pocket, and gave it a quick going over, testing it on several objects, and even used it on Gaz (without her knowledge, of course). It seemed to be working just fine.

_Why_ then, did it say "unknown?"

Dib's heart began to beat very quickly. This didn't make sense. It wasn't _possible_. There was simply no way ZIM was something _not_ human. Right?

Shaking his head, Dib shut the lid of his lap top. No, he just needed to _relax_ and think about this rationally. _Ok_, he thought, dodging his way down the stairs, _Maybe, maybe something in the playground blocked the x-rays beams an-and it's possible ZIM has a never before seen case of a water allergy. _

Leaning against the banister, Dib took a deep breath; he had realized he was shaking. Suddenly, there was a loud buzzing from his watch, which made Dib jump.

"W-what is it, Simmons?" he asked, finally realizing that it was just a call from the lab and taking it.

"Sir," Simmons said, as Dib slowly began to walk towards the couch, "We need you to do some double checking on the chicken/flute experiment. We think there's an error in the calculations and -"

"Yeah, Simmons," Dib said, sitting down on the couch, and looking forward at the coffee table, "I'll -"

His sentence broke off abruptly, as Dib stared at a large book on the coffee table. It was completely black with only the words "Aliens" in bright white lettering on the front.

"So, will you do it, sir?" Simmons pleaded.

"Actually, Simmons," Dib said, looking back over to the book, "I have some private research I'd like to look into tonight."


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: So, this is chapter five, it certainly is.

Well, I really don't have much to say about this chapter…Possibly.

First of all, I'd like to say that Bill almost drove me _insane_ trying to write for him. I didn't even _write_ that much for him! It was so frustrating!

Bah, anyway, about the "rock theory" it's really a theory…that my friend believes in. Yeah, that's about it.

Besides the fact that I don't own ZIM…because I don't.

-----

"Dib," a harsh voice said, nudging the sleeping boy roughly. "DIB!" it cried, "It's time for school."

"Wha?" the boy said, opening his eyes suddenly.

"It's time for school," Gaz repeated, raising an eyebrow at the book on aliens.

"Oh," Dib said, lifting the book off of his lap and placing it back on the coffee table. He had spent the whole night reading the book, and had found _nothing_ helpful out. There was nothing in that book about how to figure out if _someone_ was an alien or not! All it talked about was flying saucers and alien sightings, and terrible interviews with so-called "credible" witnesses.

"Thanks, Gaz," he said, getting up off of the couch and stretching.

"Yeah," muttered Gaz.

---

The trip to school once again passed in silence, Dib wrapped up in his own thoughts. Gaz made no attempt to talk to Dib, either – she rarely did. Most of the time, she seemed content to just walk quietly alongside her brother. Today was no different.

Soon they were at school once again, and Dib departed from his sister with only a rushed "Bye."

Suddenly, the bell rang as Dib rushed down the hall. _I'm late?_ He thought, almost running past his classroom.

"Sorry I'm late Ms. Bitters I-" Dib began, entering the classroom, but suddenly stopped. What would he say? He certainly wouldn't say that he had been up all night reading a book about _aliens_. "Uh, I-"

"Silence!" his teacher hissed, "Take your seat."

Dib hastily did so, looking at her nervously.

Ms. Bitters growled at him before turning to the rest of the class, "Due to government regulations, I have to ask you what your _horrible_ dream careers are before your hopes are dashed."

"I'm gonna be a doctor!" Brian immediately piped up.

"I'll be a veterinarian!" Sara said happily.

"I wanna be a fireman!" Spoo said, looking excited at the very idea.

"And I will be…" ZIM started, causing Dib to look at him curiously, "LORD OF ALL HU-_MANS!_"

"Lord of all humans?" Dib repeated softly, glaring at ZIM.

"What about _you_, Dib?" Ms. Bitters asked.

"I'm going to be a scientist!" Dib proclaimed proudly, "Well, actually I _am_ a scientist but that's not the point."

"_I_ wanted to be a scientist when I was your age, Dib," Ms. Bitters said bleakly, "But then my perpetual motion device _imploded_ in on itself, ending all life as we know it."

"What-but," Dib protested.

"The lesson here is that dreams inevitably lead to hideous implosions. That's why the skool has instituted this test," she said, picking up a stack of papers off of her desk. "From these questions, we will determine your future careers. Then you will be partnered with an adult who works in your field. You will spend the rest of the day observing them and getting used to your wretched fates. Write what you think each blotch looks like on the line next to it."

Slowly Ms. Bitters began walking around the classroom, giving each student a piece of paper in turn. "Answer each one carefully. Your future depends on it."

Finally, she placed one on Dib's desk – he looked at it curiously.

_What does identifying blotches have to do with determining our future careers_?

Shrugging, he thought about what the first blotch looked like to him. It was rather round, and had a few blobby things hanging off of it. _Ball lighting_, he wrote.

The next one looked like a giant misshapen block. _Ice falls. _

The final one was the shape of what could be described as a thick cigar, which tapered down at the sides. _Anomalous clouds_.

"Time's up!" Ms. Bitters shrieked, "Pass your papers forward!"

The entire class did so, some of them looking more apprehensive about their answers than others. Dib honestly wasn't feeling too good about his answers, either, and he almost wanted to stop Ms. Bitters from taking the papers away to the giant machine that had just fallen out of the ceiling.

"Brian!" she said, after shoving some papers into the machine, "You're going to be a fireman!"

"But I wanted to be a doctor!" Brian said.

"QUIET! The machine has spoken!" she screeched, "Sara! You are going to be an astronaut!"

Dib looked over to Sara, who was now crying, and felt his stomach drop. Maybe he should have faked his answers to get the career he wanted?

"Spoo, you will be a veterinarian."

"But I'm allergic to animals!"

"Dib, you will be a…" Bitters began, looking over to Dib, "Paranormal Investigator."

"_What?_" Dib said, in utter shock, "B-but that can't be ri-"

"ZIM, the machine says the only career you are suitable for is-" Ms. Bitters continued on, leaving Dib looking abashed.

"YES, _YES_. Lord of **_HUMANS_**!" ZIM said, jumping on his desk, looking triumphant, "I will rule you _all_ with an iron FIST!"

"No, ZIM. The machine has assigned you a career with fast-food preparation," Ms. Bitters said, seemingly amused at how ZIM's career was no where even close to what he had hoped for.

"I will prepare food with my iron fist!" ZIM said, undeterred, "Then I will work my way up to ruling you all with my iron fist!"

Suddenly, ZIM jumped up and over to Melvin, "_YOU_! Obey the **fist**!"

Ms. Bitters growled at the moronic green child, and hovered over to the door, dropping her feet down one at a time. Dib raised an eyebrow at the strange scene, before the teacher opened the door.

"Now! Children! Find your partner!" she said, waiting for the class to leave.

Several kids began leaving the classroom, though Dib hung behind. He certainly didn't want to have to hang out with a _paranormal investigator_ for the rest of the day, and the only reason he left the classroom at all was because of various threatening glares from Ms. Bitters.

Frustrated, Dib walked through the crowd of children and adults, secretly hoping his "partner" didn't show up.

"Your name….Dib?" a voice said from behind him.

"Uh, yeah," he said, turning around to face the person in question, "Who're you?"

"Call me…Bill," the man said.

"Kay," Dib said dully.

"Today you're going to see things that are going to change the way you look at the world," Bill said, walking out of the skool, "Keep your eyes, and _mind_ open."

"Yeah-huh," Dib said, following Bill with disinterest.

Almost immediately after they exited the skool, a black car pulled up in front. The doors opened up on both sides, and Bill ran over to the drivers side and got in.

Dismally, Dib jumped into the passenger's side, taking a look around the car. He noticed an alien bobble head on the dashboard.

"Bet you've never seen a car like this, eh, little man?" Bill said, seeing Dib looking around.

"Actually, my dad has one just like it," Dib replied.

"Who's your dad, kid?" Bill asked.

"Ivan Loch," Dib mumbled.

"_Loch_," Bill hissed, looking extremely bitter, "He's one of those _critics_." He clutched the steering wheel roughly, causing his knuckles to become white, "He _actually_ said that my rock theory was ridiculous and inane!"

"Rock theory?" Dib repeated.

"Oh yeah, little man," Bill said, "They're government spying devices. People don't think so, but I know better! There have been studies!"

Dib raised an eyebrow at Bill, at least his dad's ideas _kind_ of made sense. "Like _what?"_

"Orange dots, little man. Place an orange dot on a rock, come back and hour later, and it'll be several feet from where it started!" Bill continued, looking absolutely serious.

"Haven't you ever thought that's because something came along and _moved_ it? Like, a car or a kid or an animal or something?" Dib questioned.

"That's what your _father_ said!" Bill spat, "Your whole family is just a bunch of skeptics, aren't they?"

Dib blinked, his father had said _that_?

"We're here," Bill said, glaring at Dib.

"Where?" Dib asked, stepping out of the car.

He paused, looking out at the field where they had parked with a blank look. "A crop circle?"

"Isn't it beautiful? A message from creatures far more intelligent than us!" Bill said, seeming as though he had completely forgotten about the conversation with Dib.

"How do we _know_ they're intelligent?" Dib asked, staring at the crop circle, "I mean, for all we know they could be stupid, moronic, green aliens who are self obsessed and bent on taking over the Earth!"

Bill only gave Dib a vacant look, before taking out some sort of tracking device. "And, besides," Dib continued, "I think this one's a fake."

"YOU! One day you'll see that-"

Swiftly, Dib pointed to a mooing cow, rolling around in the field.

"The aliens must be _controlling_ the cow," Bill said, as though he had just had an epiphany.

"Oh come _on_!," Dib yelled, "This is stupid! You believe in _impossible_ things! I mean," he paused, looking around for something that he could fabricate into some moronic theory, "You probably believe in Count _Cocofang_!"

"What do you know about Count Cocofang!?" Bill said, suddenly urgent, spinning around to face Dib.

"That he's going to be signing autographs at Bun's Market," Dib said, pointing to a billboard behind them with Count Cocofang's face branded on it.

"Let's roll!" Bill said, jumping into the car, as Dib walked slowly to the passenger side.

"Maybe I can walk home from Bun's Market," he muttered, looking out the window.

"I've been following the Cocofang case for years. Everybody thinks his made up – but he's not. Once I catch him, the world will know what _I've known_ all along! Count Cocofang is an actual vampire! Just as Frankenchokey is an _actual_ Franken…thing!" Bill blathered.

Dib sighed as he looked through the car once more. He noticed something he hadn't previously. They looked like a small stack of folders with pictures on them. "Hey, what are these?" he asked, picking them up.

"Oh, case files! I brought them along to show you the difference between the serious paranormal, and the frauds. The top bundle are the real ones, the bottom ones are complete bunk," Bill said, off-handedly. Clearly his thoughts were still on Cocofang.

Silently, Dib looked through the case files. The first one said "C.H.U.M.S". Rolling his eyes, he flipped that one to the back of the stack. The next one said "Psychic lawn gnomes". Again, Dib flipped that one to the back of the stack, "Vampire lemurs". Flip, "Frankenchokey".

With another flip, Dib saw the next one was "Big foot" only it had a giant red X through it. _This guy believes in vampire lemurs but doesn't believe in big foot? _Dib thought, placing that one at the back of the pile.

"Ghosts," was the next one. Dib groaned in frustration. Ghosts were certainly far more believable that "C.H.U.M.S" whatever _that_ was.

"Dinosaurs". That was it, Dib couldn't take it anymore.

"Dinosaurs aren't even _paranormal_! It's an established fact that they existed!" he yelled, smacking the folder with the back of his hand.

"Ah, little man, that's what _they_ want you to believe!" Bill said.

"_Who _wants me to believe?" Dib said, flipping the dinosaur folder to the back of the pile. The final one showed the planets aligned and said "Galactic equinox, alien molt phenomenon."

"What's this?" he asked Bill.

"Heh," Bill scoffed, "The galactic equinox theory. At 5 o'clock tonight, the galaxies are going to be perfectly lined up. My colleagues, your father included, believe that this will cause all the aliens that are living off their own planet to go through a hideous molt for a few seconds. Don't read that garbage."

"Hmm, that explains why he's been gone for so long," Dib said, putting the files back where they were, and resumed looking out of the window.

"There he is!" Bill suddenly cried, pulling the car up to Bun's Market.

Sure enough, there was Cocofang, signing autographs and looking downright pathetic. "He's really not a vampire, you know," Dib said, before Bill dragged him out of the car towards Cocofang. He pushed his way through the crowd and even pushed a kid into the mud.

"We finally meet, Count Cocofang!" Bill said, looking determined.

Somehow, Dib had managed to pull away from Bill. Silently, he slunk away to McMeaties, hoping Bill wouldn't notice. Luckily, he didn't, and Dib could see that, on the other side of the street, Bill had taken out a stake and was chasing Cocofang.

"I'LL GET YOU, FANG!" Bill yelled.

Feeing relieved, Dib was about to start walking, when, suddenly, he heard the glass behind him cracking. Quickly he spun around to face McMeaties and saw, much to his dismay, that the entire interior of the restaurant was filled with a green blob.

Dib jumped back away from the blob filled building, almost falling into the street. He looked utterly horrified. The hideous goop had started leaking from any place that wasn't completely sealed.

For a tense moment, Dib could only stare as the appalling blob throbbed. Then, just as abruptly as it had formed, it was sucked back up – into ZIM's face.

Dib felt like he had just had a heart attack. "W-whu," he stuttered, "Bu-what-that's."

_Galactic equinox, alien molt phenomena_. The words flashed across Dib's mind, and he lost all color.

"Little man!" Bill called, running up to Dib, panting, "He got away."

Turning very slowly, Dib looked up at Bill with terror etched on his feature. "I-I've," his words stumbled awkwardly out of his mouth, "Home."

"I know – I feel your pain. But one day, we'll catch him. One day, we'll catch…the fang…" Bill said, valiantly as Dib walked off, looking as though he had just seen a ghost, or, rather, and alien.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: Second to last chapter! w0000000t! This _could_ be the last chapter, but for the sake of wrapping things up, I'll be having one more chapter.

Ok, so, yeah, I really don't have much to say about this chapter, except that I hope you enjoy it!

Oh, and one more thing. Penname wa Silver B wondered what it would be like if Dib and AU Dib met. Well, being a dork, I roleplayed that very scenario! And…well, being nice, I'll show it to you!

("Hey, I'm an alternate version of yourself," Dib said, as though it were no big deal, "Say, do you have any idea how to get out of this universe? Any strange, green glowing portals around here?" 

The other Dib's eye twitched, "G-gaz, do you see this hallucination, too?")

Skip.

("You," he pointed to Dib, "Definitely can't be me, because I'm me and there can't be two of me!"

"Uh, I already said I was from a different universe," Dib said, dully.

"It doesn't make sense!" other Dib cried.)

Skip.

( "You _do_ know ZIM's an alien, right?"

"What?" the other Dib said, looking extremely confused, "He's not an alien! I mean, sure, he's _weird_ but…"

"OH COME ON!" Dib cried, shaking the other Dib and forcing him to look at ZIM, "Look at him! He has no ears, or nose! His skin is green and he has three fingers! How is THAT human?")

Skip.

("So-so lemme get this straight," the other Dib said, holding his head in confusion, "He's _really_ an alien?"

"_Yes_," Dib sighed.

"…Really?" the other Dib said.

"Yes! How many times do I have to _tell_ you?")

Woo-hee, well, wasn't that fun? And, obviously, this must have occurred before this chapter. Probably somewhere around Chapter two or three…

Ok, I'll stop blathering now.

I do not own ZIM!

---

How Dib made it home after that, he didn't know. He hadn't bothered to look where he was going, or if any traffic was coming. He just didn't know what he was thinking at all. It was like there was an annoying buzzing in his head – it didn't make sense.

Slowly, he opened the door to his house, and walked inside blankly. The flustered boy sat down on the couch, without ever looking at it. He just stared straight ahead, thinking.

The green skin, the lack of a nose or ears, the robotic parents, the green dog, the "I heart Earth" signs, the comments about a superior alien race, the unknown organs, the water allergy, and, now, the galactic equinox molt.

_Why_ didn't he see it before?

"ZIM's an alien," he said hollowly.

"Duh," came a voice from next to him. It was Gaz.

Dib blinked, and looked at his sister with a confused look, "Y-you _knew_?" he asked, dumbfounded.

"Pfft, yeah," she replied off-handedly.

"_How?_" Dib questioned. _How_ had his sister known, when he hadn't?

Gaz turned off her gameslave, and looked at Dib seriously. "Have you _seen_ him?"

For some reason, Dib winced at that, "Is it that obvious?"

"Yeah," Gaz said, dully, "It is."

"So he's really an alien…" Dib murmured to himself.

"Bout' time you figured it out," Gaz muttered, turning her gameslave back on.

Dib stared at his sister for a moment, before standing up, and heading towards the stairs, "Thanks, Gaz," he said, quietly.

The boy had already ascended the stairs before his sibling said anything in response, "Whatever," she said lightly.

---

The next day, Dib emerged from his room, looking tired, but happy for some reason. He was humming to himself and had a slight bounce to his step.

"Good _morning_, son!" his father said. He was making some coffee, and it looked like he had just returned a few moments ago.

"Hey, dad!" Dib said, pulling out a box of cereal, and shaking it. There was still enough for himself and Gaz.

"I hope you were fine by _yourself_ for those few days!" Loch said, enthusiastically popping some toast out of the toaster.

"Yeah, I'm fine, dad," Dib said, pouring the cereal into a bowl, "And so is Gaz."

"Great to hear, son!" his father yelled, buttering the toast and taking a big bite out of it.

Finally, Dib had prepared his cereal and sat down at the table. For the first time he realized that Gaz wasn't there. _She must've already had breakfast_, he thought, chewing on his cereal.

"Well, son," Loch said, still standing as he ate his toast, "How's _skool_ going?"

"It's going ok, dad," Dib said, wishing he could eat the cereal faster.

"And have you found out that _alien's_ name yet?" Loch asked, looking at his son with anticipation.

Dib paused, and looked up at his father. Should he really tell him? ZIM was definitely an alien, but did he want his dad knowing about it?

"Uh," he said, "Well…"

"Yes, son?" Loch said, anxiously.

"No," he said quietly. It couldn't hurt to look into a little more…could it?

"Oh, I see," his father said, disappointment written on his face.

"Uh, yeah, sorry dad. I'll make sure to find it out, though," Dib said quickly, picking up his cereal bowl and putting it in the sink.

Hurriedly, he walked out into the living room, where Gaz was still playing her gameslave. "Were you playing that all night?" Dib asked.

Gaz grunted and muttered, "High score," before finally turning the game off, and standing up.

Dib shrugged and headed for the door, pulling it open and taking in the fresh air.

Again, the siblings walked to skool in silence. It was different today, though. The silence wasn't quite as absolute, and, for the first time in his life, Dib felt like he _wanted_ to talk to Gaz.

Not being a naturally loud or chatty person, however, Dib couldn't think of anything to say to his sister, and they departed once again in silence.

Today Dib came into class a bit early, about five minutes and, as such, no one else was there. He watched without interest as each student entered the class. Then, suddenly, he raised his head up as ZIM entered the class.

ZIM paid no mind to Dib; he seemed rather interested in the ceiling at the moment. Dib glared at the alien and his terrible disguise. He should have seen through it the moment ZIM arrived.

Ms. Bitters slithered into class just as the bell rang, "Turn your _horrible_ text books to page 325."

Sighing, Dib complied with his terrifying teacher. On the page in question, there was a large picture of a black hole with the word "The Sun" under it. The teacher got up from her desk and wrote on the board "Black Holes", making sure she squeaked the chalk as much as possible. 

"Black Holes," she began, "Are caused when stars DIE and COLLAPSE in onto themselves."

Dib stopped glaring at ZIM for a moment, and looked up at Ms. Bitters. She was actually _teaching_ them something today?

"The black hole created from the star has a FAR greater mass than the star itself. Because of this, its gravity is immense. SO immense, that if our HIDEOUS star collapsed into itself right this moment, all of the planets in this solar system would be sucked into oblivion."

The children gave uncomfortable looks around the classroom. Dib looked at them dully, didn't they already _know_ this?

"And our star may collapse at any time. It may be 4 billion years from now, or tomorrow, but, rest assured, the planet is just DOOMED."

On the other side of the room, Dib could see that ZIM was snickering at this, and after a moment it changed into a full out laugh.

"Why are you laughing at that, _ZIM_?" Dib asked, "No _human_ would find the thought of their planet being engulfed by a black hole funny."

ZIM looked nervously back at Dib, "Hah! I wasn't laughing at the _pathetic_ Earth sun destroying this dirt-ball, uh, no, I was laughing at some…_thing_ I saw on the _tele_-vision last night."

"Why are you laughing about it right _now_, ZIM?" Dib asked.

"It was a special about black holes! Funny black holes…yep…" ZIM said, looking around suspiciously.

"Black holes aren't funny!" Dib said angrily.

"NONSENSE! Of course they are! And I'm sure the other filth-monkeys will agree," ZIM yelled.

"Yeah, Dib, what's your problem?" Zita said, "You sound crazy."

"What? Did you even _listen_ to what he said?" Dib exclaimed, pointing to ZIM.

"Foolish Dib-creature! You do not give enough credit to your fellow Earth-beasts!" ZIM said, wide zipper smirk now on his face.

"Yeah, Dib, do you think we're stupid or something?" Brian said, sounding insulted.

"But I-" Dib started.

"Just because you're some kind of genius doesn't mean you have the right to call the rest of us dumb!" Sara yelled.

"But-"

"You're probably just as crazy as your dad!" The Letter M concluded.

Dib looked flabbergasted around the class. Were they listening to the same thing he was? ZIM had just said that black holes were funny. Black holes were _not_ funny!

Glaring at ZIM, Dib finally looked like he had something to say. He never got to say whatever it was he wanted to say, however, as the morning recess bell decided to ring at that moment.

The other kids immediately ran out of the classroom for the playground. Dib, however, stayed behind, and walked slowly over to the other side of the class.

ZIM had just started getting up from his seat, when Dib walked by. The two shared a long glare before Ms. Bitters kicked them out.

---

The rest of the day passed in much the same way. Dib would point out something incredibly stupid ZIM would say, then the rest of the kids would say that Dib was calling them dumb. Really, Dib wondered how his classmates didn't think the things ZIM said were weird. Even _he_ had thought that the things he said were weird, even when he _didn't_ believe he was an alien.

Dib left the skool feeling frustrated, but with plenty to talk about.

"…And then they called me crazy!" Dib finished a conversation he was having with Gaz as they walked home.

Gaz sighed; she had remained quiet through the whole 'conversation'. "You sound like dad," she muttered.

Dib blinked, "What? No I don't!" he defended.

Gaz didn't reply, and Dib didn't say anything more, either. He really didn't want to sound like his father.

As soon as Dib got home, he went into his room. He would just continue working on that one laser project he had been working on. That would make him feel more like himself!

Enthusiastically, he sat down at his desk, and started looking through his blue prints. "Ok," he muttered, writing some more information down, "If I just changed the Z line output to the," he broke off, staring at the work. "No, that would never work…"

"But what if I…" he said, talking to himself. He shook his head and crumpled up the paper. No, that wasn't it either. Why was this so hard?

Maybe he just needed to take a break? Yeah, that was it, he had been working for-for…well, not very long but, he was tired.

Angrily, he stopped working, and pulled away from the desk. "I'll come back later," he said, looking backwards at the work from the door. He turned the knob and headed down stairs.

Dib walked dejectedly and entered the living room looking rather defeated, indeed. Tiredly, he flopped down onto the couch, and stared at the ceiling. He watched the light fade all around him, as day slowly changed into night.

He had never done that before.

Ding-dong.

Dib shot up, as the door bell rang. Who would be coming here at night? Feeling slightly irritated, Dib pulled himself off of the couch and shambled to the door listlessly. Dully, he began to pull it open.

Then, suddenly, the person on the other side forced it open. Much to Dib's surprise, he saw it was ZIM.

"I need the use of your telescope," ZIM said, looking completely serious.

"What?" Dib said, standing completely still, "Why?"

"Nothing your feeble human mind should concern itself with," ZIM said, glowering at Dib.

"It's _my_ telescope, ZIM," Dib said coldly.

"We don't have time for this, Dib! Your world might be in very great danger!" ZIM yelled, looking desperate.

"Well, _obviously._ I know you're an alien, you know," Dib said, smirking.

ZIM looked at Dib blankly for a moment, not exactly understanding. "Eh?" he said, "Oh, yes, well, this is something else entirely."

Dib stared at ZIM, "You don't even _care_ that I know?"

"Eh," ZIM said, shrugging, "Now, let me use your telescope before it's too late!"

Dib's hand suddenly fell back onto the end table, looking around for something _anything_. Then, his hand felt something similar to hand cuffs. He grabbed them at once, and brandished them like a weapon.

"Woo, what are those?" ZIM asked, pointing to them.

"Uh, well, I don't know," Dib said, looking at them, "_But_ they're something of my dad's! And that means it must do something horrible to aliens!"

Carefully, Dib approached ZIM with the hand-cuff type things, intending to push him out of the house on threat of 'something horrible' happening to him.

ZIM didn't look pleased, and probably would have pushed Dib away if there hadn't been a sudden shaking of the Earth. He growled, "**ZIM** does not have time for this!" and ran out of the house.

Dib found himself looking at the place where ZIM had been just a second before, still holding the hand-cuffs in a threatening manner.

"Score one for Earth!" he said, victoriously.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: ZOMG! Last chapter!

WHEEE!

Ahem, anyway, I actually like this chapter. Now, if you know me, then you know I generally hate my stuff, but I do like this chapter, so, yay for me!

Now, this chapter is based around Rise of the Zitboy, though, as usual, it only makes a smallish cameo, if you could call it that.

Mmm-hmm.

Oh, and, finally, I'd like to say I love all of you who read and review my stories (even though some of you find black holes hilarious…)! You've all been very kind, especially since this is the first fanfiction that I've really stuck with. Thank you!

And you can expect some random oneshots from me before I start another major project.

So, here's the last chapter of Crazy Talk!

I do not own ZIM! Nope, I certainly don't.

----

After Dib's first experience with one of ZIM's horrible, evil, _horrible_ plans (for, surely, he was up to something not good) he found that he was having even more trouble focusing on any of his work, or even focusing on something simple as a premise. Lately, he would much rather be glaring at ZIM from across the room, or trying to figure out his diabolic schemes to destroy humanity that he would occasionally scream out foolishly during class. No one seemed to notice, though, and when Dib pointed it out, he was only greeted with jeers and laughter. He had never been treated that way before.

It honestly didn't seem to bother him much, though. He couldn't exactly _blame_ them; after all, he probably would have done the same thing just a few weeks ago. Then again, this was glaringly obvious evidence he was presenting here. Dib sometimes wondered if he would have been able to ignore it like the rest of his classmates.

Still, he had no _proof_. He had all kinds of reasons, but it wasn't like he had a picture of ZIM out of his disguise. He had never actually _seen_ ZIM out of his terrible, terrible, disguise. If only he _did_ have a picture.

Dib paused, looking up as though he had just had an epiphany.

That was it! He would just get a picture of ZIM out of his disguise. How hard could it be, anyway?

This was easier said than done, however, as Dib had _no_ idea at all how to spy. There had never been a reason to do any snooping or investigating.

Being an amateur, Dib was looking just a bit nervous about his first covert operation. He came sparsely prepared, only carrying a camera and some high-tech binoculars. He had also removed his lab coat; he felt it would get in the way. It didn't make much of a difference to him at this point, he had taken to keeping the coat unbuttoned lately; he found it got in the way of speech. The coat didn't serve much of a practical purpose anymore, anyway. It wasn't like he was performing many experiments anymore.

Using what he supposed was stealth, Dib snuck up to the creepy green house that he had shied away from a few weeks ago. _Man_, Dib thought wistfully, _Just think of how much information I could have gotten! _He silently cursed his former disbelief in aliens.

None the less, he still wasn't so sure about this. He stopped by the white fence that surrounded the front of the house. Looking down at his camera, then back at the house, he sighed. No, he wouldn't leave, he was already here. What was there to lose?

_My organs_… a nasty voice in the back of his head said.

"Nyeh…" Dib said, feeling his stomach with apprehension. Suddenly, he shook his head; there was no point in being so worried. ZIM was too stupid to do anything _really_ horrible to him, wasn't he?

Then again, if _that_ were true, then why was he here? If ZIM was too stupid to do anything, then why was he concerned for the Earth's well-being?

Dib sighed again; he was over-thinking this.

Quickly, before he started on another train of thought, he moved away from the fence, and into the small yard. Nothing seemed to happen. He looked at the garden gnomes with suspicion. They were kind of…creepy. Casting a fleeting glance back at the gnomes, he moved towards the left window. For some reason, it was pink in color.

Shrugging it off, Dib pressed his face against the glass, in an attempt to see inside. To his astonishment, he saw that the inside of ZIM's home was even more messed up than the outside. Everything seemed disproportioned and strange, especially since there seemed to be a _toilet_ in the kitchen. _Did ZIM even do any research before coming to Earth?_ Dib wondered.

On the couch, ZIM's dog sat. He wasn't sitting like any normal dog, either, Dib noted, but he was sitting like a person would. Even weirder was that it appeared to be sucking on a Mr. Sucky. "Oh, I gotta take a picture of _this_," Dib mumbled to himself, fumbling with the camera before he got it steady, and managed to take a picture.

Unfortunately, Dib realized too late, the flash was on. This seemed to alert the dog to his presence, as its expression suddenly became serious. It jumped to the door and opened it, still looking at Dib seriously.

"Uh…" Dib began, hiding the camera behind his back.

The dog continued to stare at him before its features became softer, and it exclaimed, "HI, big-headed boy!" before jumping on Dib's head.

Dib was speechless for a moment. Sure, he had realized that ZIM's dog _couldn't_ have been a dog, but hearing it talk was still something that threw him threw a loop.

"Your head's so _squeee-sheee,_" the dog said, hugging his head with its nubby little arms.

"Uh…thanks?" Dib said slowly.

The dog giggled insanely at Dib's simple thank you. It jumped off of his head and started running in circles, flailing its arms wildly.

"O-kay…" Dib said, taking several pictures of the psychotic dog, before turning back to the window.

He continued taking pictures of the home, and around it. The dog didn't seem to mind. In fact, it seemed like it had completely forgotten about Dib. It was currently spinning on its head, trying to hop at the same time.

Still, there was no sign of ZIM, and that was what he had come for. ZIM was the alien, not the house, or the dog (though it was insane).

Looking disappointed, Dib moved from his position near the window, and was about to go home when, suddenly, he heard the small squeaky noise of a door opening from behind him.

"_Yoo-**oou**_!" ZIM yelled, pointing at Dib, "Dib _HUMAN!_ What do you do in the house of _ZIII-IIIM!_"

"I'm not _in_ your house…" Dib said, raising his eyebrow.

"Eh…" ZIM said, looking a little confused, "Eh, _yes_, of course."

He blinked, and the two stared at each other for a moment.

"What are you _DOING_?" ZIM finally demanded.

"Uh, nothing," Dib said, slipping the camera into his pant's pocket.

"Oh, really?" ZIM said, clearly disappointed. Shrugging, he started walking back into his house, "Wait, yes you _are_!" he said, suddenly turning around to face Dib again. "Gnomes!"

Dib didn't have time to respond to ZIM's accusation, he was too busy being grabbed and lifted into the air by ZIM's gnomes.

"Hah! I _knew_ those gnomes did something!" Dib said, oddly excited about being captured.

"Are they not _genius_!?" ZIM said, approaching Dib. How no one noticed this scene, Dib could only guess; he saw that some of ZIM's neighbors were outside.

"Well, I mean, they're _ok_," Dib said, looking at the gnomes from his vantage point above him, "All they can do is capture intruders?"

"_No_," ZIM scoffed, "They can also shoot lasers!"

"Wooh, really?" Dib said, "Neat!"

"Haha….yes…" ZIM said, looking rather proud. "Now tell **_ZIM_** what you were _DOING_!" he continued, abruptly changing his tone.

"Uh," Dib said blankly. He couldn't think of an excuse at the moment. Luckily, he didn't need to, for the strange green dog decided to tackle ZIM at that very moment.

"I LOVE YOU, MASTER!" it screeched wildly.

"GIR!" ZIM said, flailing wildly, trying to get the little robot off of him, "Get off of ZIM's _head!_"

"Okee dokee!" GIR said, jumping off of ZIM's head, and promptly resumed running around in circles.

ZIM looked rather disheveled, and his wig was positioned awkwardly on his head. He adjusted it quickly. "Now **_tell_**-" he began.

"BIG HEADED BOY!" GIR cried again, jumping on Dib, while the rockets in his feet were active, causing Dib to break free from the gnome's grasp. "I wanna make you a taco!!!"

"Er," Dib said, slightly disoriented from being forced to the ground by a flying dog robot thing.

"And _then_ we can go pig fishing! AnD monKEH diViNG! And-and mOoSe surfing and then we can-" the insane little robot continued in this manner as Dib slowly got to his feet.

He backed away from the house slowly, before breaking out into a full out run.

Sure, he hadn't gotten a picture of ZIM without his _disguise_ but he thought it had went well enough for his first try. He got pictures of his _mental_ robot dog, anyway.

Yes, Dib was quite pleased with his first attempt at spying, even though he had failed miserably and had been caught. Still, he had no idea who he was going to show these pictures. He wasn't quite sure if he wanted his dad involved. And, even if he had _wanted_ to show his father, he couldn't. Loch currently wasn't home. He had told Dib that he was going off on another 'expedition'.

Dib sighed, and flopped down on his bed. Sleepily, he wondered if there was some sort of organization dealing with the paranormal. He turned over, facing the wall. He could show _them_, but, did he really _want_ to? He turned again, facing the ceiling. He had changed so much in just the past few weeks.

Dib barely felt like himself anymore. He turned his gaze to his room. It was still white, and still scientific looking but there were no experiments anywhere. There was no odd colored goo sticking to the walls. There were no half finished inventions lying anywhere. There were no plans for new ones.

Frustrated, he closed his eyes. He missed science.

---

It was several hours before he awoke. Slowly, he opened his eyes, and saw that there was a slight light coming in through the window. He rubbed his eyes, and stood up; standing blankly before realizing that he had to go to skool.

Quickly, he rushed over to his closet, and pulled on one of his lab coats. He hadn't worn one in a few days, but he felt like he should today. Despite this, though, he didn't button it up. He didn't want it blocking his mouth.

Dib took a hurried glance at his alarm – he should have been leaving for school already. He must have forgotten to set the alarm. How could he have forgotten _that_?

With an irritated look on his face, he dashed down the stairs, dodging the paranormal equipment scattered on the stairs. He looked around the living room. Gaz wasn't there. She must have left without him.

Shrugging, he pulled open the front door, and left his home.

Dib tried to walk faster today, he didn't want to be late _again_. Over the past couple of days he hadn't got to skool on time. He hated being late. He was always worried that Ms. Bitters would do something _horrible_ to him.

He increased his speed as the skool came into view.

Rushing inside, he almost tripped, but caught himself. He just made it into the classroom before the bell rang.

Ms. Bitters growled at him, but Dib just scowled and walked to his desk. He noticed ZIM wasn't there yet.

Boredly, he placed his cheek onto the back of his hand, and sighed. He didn't know why he was getting so worked up over this. ZIM was _obviously_ a moron, even if he _was_ an alien.

What was _ZIM_ going to do?

Dib shifted his gaze to the window. Yeah, what _was_ ZIM going to do? It's not like he had actually _done_ anything. Why did he care so much about it? He didn't even _want_ to be spying on him. He would rather being conducting experiments. The only reason he had watched ZIM so closely was because he had thought he was a threat but after yesterday…He wasn't so sure.

It had taken ZIM so long to realize that he was there, and then his insane little robot had allowed him to escape. If he was there to conquer earth, then he was doing a pretty poor job of it.

Maybe he didn't need to worry about it so much.

---

Half way though the day, ZIM still wasn't at school. This bothered Dib a little for some reason, but he shook it off. He had actually started planning a new invention, a completely automated house. He had just started planning the nursery when the bell for the final recess of the day rang.

Happily, Dib his supplies outside, and sat down next to his sister, who was currently sitting on the steps of the school, reading a book called "Punch Club". He was actually a little surprised to see Gaz _reading_ anything. That was something she rarely did.

Neither of them spoke for the first few minutes of recess, Gaz reading her book, and Dib working on the house. It was quiet out.

Stretching, Dib raised his head up from the paper, to get a good look at the few trees around the skool. He saw the trees, and those _squirrels_. _I wonder if dad is right about those squirrels…_ Dib thought, staring at the squirrels with glowing red eyes.

His attention was drawn away from the cyborg squirrels, however, when he suddenly spotted ZIM, walking ahead of almost every student in the entire school. As he drew nearer, Dib saw that they were in some sort of trance.

Wide eyed, Dib instinctively his behind the ledge next to the steps. He pressed his back against it, and did not turn around.

"You will tell Pustulio everything that Pustulio wants to know!" Dib heard ZIM say. He sounded like he was standing right next to Gaz. "I am Pustulio's official spokesman. Whatever information you give to me will _please_ Pustulio."

_Pustulio_? Dib thought, _Who's pustulio?_

He still did not peek over the ledge.

"Stare deeply into Pustulio," ZIM continued, doubtlessly to Gaz "He is your master, he is-"

"Go away," he heard his sister say.

"Are you sure you don't want to look at Pustuuuuu-_lio_?" ZIM asked, saying "pustulio" mysteriously.

Gaz responded with a grunt.

There was silence for a moment before ZIM said, "Come, my filthy stink children. You shall reveal your secrets to Pustulio in the privacy of the classroom."

After that, Dib heard the shuffling of the kids into the skool. He waited a moment. Everything was quiet again. Finally, he looked around the ledge. No one was there except his sister.

Looking slightly relieved that ZIM was no longer outside, Dib walked back over to where his work still lay, unfinished. He stared at it for a minute.

_I should do something…_ he thought, looking back at the school.

He looked back down to his work, and sat. _I don't really want to, though…_

Dib didn't continue with his work, he just looked at what was ahead of him, blankly. Should he do anything? Obviously ZIM had found some way to hypnotize the students…he really didn't like the sound of that.

A brief amount of time passed, before Dib suddenly stood up, looking dismayed. He really didn't want to do this. He inhaled deeply, before entering the building.

As he walked, Dib noticed that there were no other people in the hallways. It was eerie. Still, he continued towards his classroom, looking tense.

He reached the classroom far too soon for his liking. He still felt the urge to leave, to go back outside and work on his invention. It's not like it wasn't too late. He didn't have to do this.

Dib leaned up against the door; it was closed. He couldn't hear anything from within. He actually had a feeling all the doors in the school were sound proof, to keep the classes from disrupting each other.

He was completely still, save for his heart beating like mad. If he wanted to know what was going on, he would have to open the door.

Taking in a deep, shuttery breathe, he opened the door just a little, and peeked inside.

Inside, ZIM was sitting on Ms. Bitters's desk, looking bored and frustrated. "Pustulio commands you to!-" He paused, looking at the hypnotized kids blankly, "Eh." Another pause, "Destroy this **pathetic** _dirt-**ball**_" ZIM said, finally, waving his hand around in vague gesture.

Dib gasped, and slapped his hands over his mouth. He hoped no one noticed.

"That doesn't sound like something pustulio would say!" one of the kids cried.

"Pustulio _rocks_!" another one said.

"_DARE _you question Pustulio's spokes-_maaan_?" ZIM said, raising one of his claws up half in victory.

The students continued to look at him vacantly.

"_Stoo_-pid humans!" ZIM cried angrily.

Dib sighed. Even after _hypnotizing_ almost the entire school, he still couldn't do anything. Maybe he really _didn't_ need to worry about ZIM.

Quietly, and full of relief, he shut the door, and started walking away when…

_BOOM_.

There was suddenly an explosion from Ms. Bitters's classroom, which shook the school slightly.

Fearing the worst, Dib rushed over to the door and flung it open. "Eww…" he said. The entire room was covered with pus, and all of the hypnotized kids now lay dazed all over the room.

Apparently, ZIM had fallen off of desk, and was now laying face first in a puddle of pus.

Dib almost started laughing at ZIM when something very creepy slithered around him. It was Ms. Bitters. "Dib!" she hissed, handing him a bit of sponge, "You will not leave skool grounds until all this mess has been cleaned up."

"Me!? But-" Dib protested, looking down at the meager sponge his teacher had given him.

"SILENCE!" Bitters shrieked, slithering eerily back to her desk.

Suddenly, ZIM shot up, looking triumphant. "SUCCESS!" he said, grinning widely and laughing at Dib.

Dib blinked, looking confused.

"Ha _ha!"_ ZIM said, "You see, Dib-_**beast** _it was my plan all along to make you clean up a sticky room!"

"But that doesn't-" Dib began.

"SI-_LEENCE_!" ZIM yelled, walking out of the room with his hands behind his back.

Dib stared on after ZIM, until he was out of sight. He then turned his gaze back to the room, looking extremely irritated. ZIM was far from harmless.

_I'll have to keep my eye on him_, Dib though, wondering how _exactly_ he was supposed to clean up the room.

He growled as he tried to clean it up with the bit of sponge, _And his horrible, alien, **evil.**_


End file.
